That funny looking cloud

John Kerry's Sept 12 statement on a possible nuclear test in North Korea.

http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/002797.html#002797

“The mere fact that we are even contemplating a nuclear weapons test by North Korea highlights a massive national security failure by President Bush. During his administration, North Korea has advanced its nuclear program and a potential route to a nuclear 9/11 is clearly visible. North Korea’s nuclear program is well ahead of what Saddam Hussein was even suspected of doing – yet the president took his eye off the ball, wrongly ignoring this growing danger. What is unfolding in North Korea is exactly the kind of disaster that it is an American president’s solemn duty to prevent.”

The AP story that everyone is going to read about soon originates from a South Korean news agency called Yonhap. Some officials are claiming the blast was not a nuclear explosion.

Gov't Confirms 'Non-Nuclear' N. Korean Explosion
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200409/200409120026.html

They have two sources, one is an unnamed source in Beijing (capital of China) and the other is an unidentified diplomatic source in Seoul (capital of S Korea).

The NY Times is also getting anonymous scoops. They cite "senior officials with access to the intelligence" who say that for 3 weeks now Bush and defense officials have been hearing about N Korea's plans to openly test a nuclear weapon above ground.

The explosion occured on September 9 at 11 am, and is reported to have been a mushroom cloud 4 km, or about 2.4 miles in diameter.

In 1946 we had Operation Crossroads (cute name, love it really) and that was a 23 kilaton bomb. Remember that is about one thousandth the size of Operation Castle just 8 years later. What is interesting about Operation Crossroads is that it was detonated underwater but the diameter of the mushroom cloud that resulted was about 5km across, not much bigger than the reported 4 km mushroom cloud that supposedly occured on September 9, 2004.

Operation Crossroads
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Crossrd.html

If this nuclear blast and 4km diameter mushroom cloud actually occured 3 days ago I am amazed more information is not being made public. Like I said before this will affect the entire region and perhaps our planet's atmosphere.

It is not possible that they could have missed this with satellite. Take a look at this satellite view of the Korean peninsula. The width of the Peninsula is only about 150 km. An explosion with a 4 km diameter mushroom cloud could NOT be missed! Unless all the TV cameras stay focused on Hurricanes off the coast of Florida, instead of radioactive explosions in the North Pacific region.

Satellite composite of Korean Peninsula
http://tinyurl.com/6afh4

Political Cartoon about N Korea's Nuclear Ambitions by David Horsey
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=724